


permutations (full-length)

by boundinshallows (museme87)



Series: permutations [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Actual Queen of My Heart May Carleton, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Alfie Solomons, Bisexual Tommy Shelby, Break Up, Businessman Tommy, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Double Penetration, Drinking to Cope, Drunk Sex, Emotional Infidelity, Established Relationship, Ex Sex, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Food Sex, Gangster Alfie, Hospitals, Infidelity, Literally All the Infidelity Everywhere of Every Kind, M/M, Major Character Injury, Multi, Past Abortion, Pegging, Pets, Polyamory, Porn With Plot, Threesome - F/M/M, Triad - Freeform, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:40:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22105732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museme87/pseuds/boundinshallows
Summary: [Full-Length Series] Tommy meets the loves of his life in a stable and a pub when he's nineteen.
Relationships: May Carleton/Alfie Solomons, May Carleton/Tommy Shelby, May Carleton/Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons, Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Series: permutations [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620259
Comments: 11
Kudos: 68





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> The initial version of permutations was written as a gift fic, and some of you may have read that version. At the time I wrote it, I mentioned that I was planning on expanding it into a series. This is said series, posted as a separate fic. Roman numeral i and ii are exactly the same as the initial fic, and iii-vi are entirely new. 
> 
> I've opted to post it as a separate work for two main reasons. First, I didn't want to feel beholden to my giftee's likes and dislikes as the series continued, and keeping it as part of that initial work made me feel a little obligated to do so. Second, this fic has taken on a slightly different structure than the initial post. I want to be able to use the new structure as I think it makes the most sense going forward. 
> 
> A final note on structure: each of the three chapters in this fic will contain six ficlets with each character of our triad getting two povs. For chapter one, it alternates as Tommy > Alfie > May with each Roman numeral. The Roman numerals are in place in the likely event that I add "outtakes" to the series and need to situate the reader at a particular point in the timeline.

**I.**

When she brings her lips to his ear, Tommy’s eyes flutter shut at the smell of her. The scents of sweet grass and sweat and stable cling to her dark hair, the very hair he’d fisted as he took her from behind in the field on this afternoon’s ride. He’s not known May long, but it’s been long enough for Tommy to know that he’s half in love already. She likes his working-class cock, and she has access to a stable full of horses far finer than Tommy’s ever dreamed. At nineteen years old, that feels like enough for him.

“Young gentleman at the pool table,” she says, pronunciation so proper it makes him feel deliciously filthy. “He’s been trying to catch your attention for the past three minutes.”

May draws back with a quick kiss to his temple, her doe eyes holding his gaze as he looks at her. She blinks slowly. If she’s trying to convey her jealousy, she’s doing an awful job of it. All Tommy can read on her face is arousal.

A moment later when he figures out how to escape May’s gravitational pull, Tommy directs his attention to the corner where a few men have gathered to play pool. He finds the bloke immediately: lean, clean-shaven, dirty blonde. Tommy’s not sure there’s anything to be all that impressed about until he catches sight of that mouth, full and made for sucking cock. Biting his lip, he lingers over that mental image as their eyes first meet. The bloke grins, too fucking sure of himself, but Tommy’s always found that attractive, hasn’t he?

“We should bring him home,” May suggests.

“I can’t bring you _and_ a bloke back to the flat. Freddie would kill me.”

“Then I’ll get us a hotel room with Father’s card. He did say to use it should the necessity arise,” she leans back into Tommy. “This feels quite necessary, don’t you think?”

They both turn back to the pool table, watching as the bloke makes his shot. Victorious, he glances in their direction and smiles wide when he notices them looking.

May gives an impish little wave.

Tommy’s cock stirs.

Within the half hour, the door to their newly acquired hotel room shuts and will not open again for another twelve hours.

***

**II.**

Even when he was a little lad, Alfie struggled to find things to keep his attention. Because, as far as he’s concerned, the world? Eh, it’s got its highlights, sure, but most of it’s just shit. So when he does find something he likes, right, something that appeals to his very peculiar senses, he goes all in.

His current interest lies in the way May’s skin burns from his beard. (The beard is new, and decidedly sticking the fuck around, ain’t it, because of May’s mouth and Tommy’s arse). He holds her jaw in his big hand, bringing it over her shoulder to twist back and kiss him. Alfie could do this for hours—watch that pale, porcelain skin turn to blush to pink to red and angry. Somedays her body is his canvas, and Alfie’s taken up this art with abandon. He’d never been interested in art before May, but then again, he’d never had such quality materials at his fingertips, had he?

“Alfie,” she whispers against his lips.

“No begging, treacle. Doesn’t become you.”

She shifts just slightly and slaps him. “Then fuck me already.”

Oh, that is _much_ more like it. Alfie swoons and gathers her in his arms, rolling over so she lies half underneath him. Her hands slip up his hairy chest over his shoulders, and her fingers twist into the short hair of his nape. May rolls her hips against him, eager to be filled and loved. And Alfie’s going to do that—fulfill her every fucking desire because her mouth is so, so red—when he feels tiny claws against his thigh.

Alfie looks over to the nest of blankets on their newly purchased bed to see that Cyril—all puppy fat and giant eyes—has woken up from his nap. The pup had been a gift from May when the three of them had moved into the flat together barely a month ago. Tommy’d been skeptical. May’d been smitten. Alfie’d fallen deeply, selflessly, helplessly in love.

“Bout to get an eyeful, mate. You’re too young to see such filth.”

Cyril yawns and whines.

“Go back to sleep, darling boy.”

“With the way you two carry on, there’ll be no sleep for anyone in the building,” Tommy says, coming back into the bedroom with a bottle of gin in hand.

“Oi, aren’t you on breakfast duty today?”

Tommy holds up the gin before stepping up on the bed, over Alfie and May, and dropping to his side. He unscrews the lid and tips it forward, an offer.

“I’m all for alcohol in the morning, but, Christ, Tommy, _with_ something.”

Tommy leans into her, and Alfie rolls off May just a bit to give him access. He loves her burned mouth, but he loves it when Tommy bites her lips into a swell even more. So, when Tommy stops, it’s not May who protests, but Alfie.

“What—”

Tommy meets his gaze as he slips down May’s body, effectively silencing him. When Tommy parts May’s legs, Alfie keeps his eyes steady on Tommy’s. Those blue eyes electrify him, haunt him in the night. Once, he’d made the same shade appear on Tommy’s hips in the shape of his fingers.

“May’s right. Ought to enjoy it with something, eh?”

When he pours the gin between her legs, her hips jump. Tommy’s on her in a moment, lapping at the alcohol mixed with her wetness. Reaching out, Alfie fists Tommy’s hair and pushes his face completely against May’s cunt. It has May panting and Tommy reaching for his cock. But then Alfie tugs on Tommy’s hair until he rises up, and they meet over May’s thigh. The kiss is messy, Alfie not even trying to move his lips with any technique. Tommy won’t mind; Tommy likes it dirty.

And the taste of his tongue, Christ. Fucking biblical, as far as Alfie is concerned, the mix of gin and May together. A man might drink deep for a fucking age and never tire of the taste.

Alfie pulls back, thumbing the spit and mixture of alcohol and wet off Tommy’s lower lip. He brings it to his tongue and savors.

“Sweet.”

***

**III.**

Her impeccably manicured toes dig into the plush carpets as she slips quietly down the corridor to the living room. When she’d arrived home from meeting her mother and sister for lunch, May had expected the kitchen to be in shambles from Alfie’s latest attempt to teach Tommy how to bake. However, it was as spotless as when she’d left that morning, which meant that either baking had been a rousing success or that Alfie hadn’t been able to convince Tommy to try in the first place. May hopes it’s the latter; she would rather adore the idea of having two men capable of making her _tarte tatin_.

With only a glance, May looks into their brightly lit bedroom. The linens are still a tangle from when they’d made love this morning. The memory stirs her, a needy throb pulsing between her thighs as she feels the ghost of Alfie’s hands on her hips, his hard cock against her lower back, guiding her movement as she thrust into Tommy with her strap-on. She suddenly feels a little breathless and tries to temporarily put that from her mind. If she begs prettily, Tommy will let her put her cock in him again tonight (and perhaps allow Alfie to join her).

She finds the two of them together on the sofa watching EastEnders. They’ve somehow managed to get themselves intertwined together, Tommy curled tightly against a sprawled out Alfie. Alfie gently massages Tommy’s scalp in a way that warms May’s heart. Like this, the two of them— _her boys_ —are so careful, so tender with one another. She almost can’t bring herself to interrupt.

However, she does because she knows it’s what they would want.

With a slightly heavier step to announce her arrival, May walks behind the sofa. Alfie reaches for her hand and kisses the inside of her wrist as she briefly presses her lips to Tommy’s fine cheekbone. Shimmying out of her dress, she slips on one of Alfie’s discarded button-ups before joining them.

And what a sight she must make in her Jane Woolrich bra and panties wearing a flannel Alfie picked up from the charity shop a few months back. Her mother would be appalled, but then her mother was appalled at most everything that made her happy. It hardly mattered whether she’d chosen ballet over piano or taking two working-class men to her bed instead of the nice Oxford graduate working at her father’s company. Her mother reacted just as strongly, as she did with everything she found disagreeable in May’s life.

But May loves them, Tommy and Alfie.

She loves the way they touch each other sweetly and touch her as if she is made of stronger stuff than glass. She loves how they work together to please her in every way a man might. She loves her days spent in the stables with Tommy, covered in muck, damp with rain, and sharing easy smiles as they brush their mares. She loves her evenings curled up with Alfie in their oversized chair, reading the same book and sipping wine from the same glass.

And she loves, just now, how Tommy reaches for a pillow to sit on their legs for her head. How they open the tight weave of their bodies to make room for her to lie across them. How Alfie pulls at the clip holding back the curls of her hair and works his fingers through her locks. How Tommy’s calloused fingertips trace patterns on the jut of her hip and softness of her belly.

May hums dreamily, content.

***

**IV.**

“Are you certain—”

“May.”

Tommy sighs from where he sits at their dining table and rubs his temples. When he looks at her, he finds her devastated expression, her hand curled around the glass of whisky pressed against her breasts. And yes, Tommy supposes, that came out a little sharper than he’d intended.

Getting up from his seat (and the mountains of work scattered on the table before him), Tommy goes to her, slips his arms around her small waist and draws her close. His fingers find their way into her hair, his lips to the crown of her head, pressing soothing kisses into perfumed curls. He rocks her in his arms a bit in hopes that it will soothe her worries, but her body remains a little too stiff against him.

“I’m sorry, love.”

May glances up at him beneath long lashes. “He should have been back by now.”

“Alfie knows how to handle himself.”

“These are _not_ the men he usually deals with!” May snaps. “How can you just… _sit_ there, reading contracts for the bloody business, while he’s out there, Thomas?”

Taking a step away, May turns her back to him. Tommy isn’t sure if she’s doing it out of anger or if it’s because she never lets them see her when she’s on the brink of tears. And he feels a bit guilty, his eyes straying to his work that’s been abandoned. She’s not wrong. But just because he’s working doesn’t mean that he isn’t worried about Alfie too. There’s just nothing to be done for it right now, is there?

“Hey,” he says, using the same voice he does with a frightened horse. “These things, they don’t adhere to a schedule. Just because he’s not home yet doesn’t mean he’s not coming back, eh?”

“Fuck you both. Truly, fuck you both to hell and back to turning me into some simpering little housewife waiting for her hus—”

Tommy barely registers the door to the flat opening before he hears May’s ungodly whimper. Then Alfie’s there, opening himself to May’s outstretched arms. They share a look over her head, and Alfie’s eyes communicate all that Tommy needs to know just now. Something had gone wrong, but he’d sorted it. Tommy spares a second to worry whether trouble has followed Alfie home, but thinks better of it; Alfie would never allow that to happen.

It takes him a moment to register the relief he feels in his chest, to exhale the figurative breath he hadn’t quite realized he’d been holding for hours. Tommy joins May in Alfie’s arms, the stink of blood and filth on Alfie mixing with the potent rose and jasmine of May’s Chanel in ways that short circuit Tommy’s brain.

What seems like hours pass before he senses May move next to him, drawing back and inspecting Alfie. She grasps his hand and looks over the torn and bloodied knuckles, doe eyes searching his face.

“You’re hurt.”

Alfie shakes his head. “Most of it’s the other bloke’s, innit?”

“And this?” she asks, carefully placing her manicured fingers next to a long wound across his pectoral. “It looks like it needs stitched. You ought to go to the hospital.”

“I don’t think that’d be wise,” Tommy says, reaching out to rub a hand over her silk-covered arm. “Police will get involved.”

Alfie hums his agreement.

Later after May’s gone to bed, they’ll talk about where Alfie buried the body, about whether or not it’d been worth it. If needs be, Tommy will call his uncle Charlie and help set things to right again; no one knows the rivers quite like him.

***

**V.**

“He’ll be here.”

May appears unconvinced from across the table. “So you’ve assured me.”

And Alfie, well, he can’t quite blame her for the bitterness in her tone, now can he? Their reservations were for a little over an hour ago, and neither of them—Alfie glances at his mobile again: nothing—yeah, neither of them has so much as received a text by way of explanation.

He supposes he shouldn’t allow it to bother him so much. And right, well, maybe it is their first anniversary, technically speaking. The romantic kind, not the fucking kind. (They’re nearly to their two-year fuck-iversary, as Alfie likes to think of it, but it seems like they celebrate _that_ quarterly and with significant fanfare, never to be forgotten). They’re more than this though. They don’t need some date on a calendar to remind them to appreciate what they have together. And if Tommy’s late, well, he probably has good reason, doesn’t he?

Alfie frowns. He wonders how many times he’s going to have to tell himself that before he starts to believe it, pitiful, love-sick fool that he is.

“It’s slipped his mind is all. Quarterlies are due.”

“Mmm,” May hums, licking her lips and nodding, not bothering to meet his eyes. “Yes, quarterlies.”

“May. Treacle—”

“He’s been a shitty partner lately. We both know it, but neither of us want to confront him about it. The two of us—we’ll let this carry on for an age, Alfie. You’ll find some underhanded way to prove your point, something with the business, and I’ll lure him close before leaving for my parents’ home for two weeks to show him I’m upset.”

“What are you saying?”

May looks at him finally, brown eyes sad. “I’m saying we’re establishing bad habits, just allowing him to run rough shod over us whenever it serves him. I know the company just got its license, but that’s no excuse for Tommy to be so distracted. I _miss_ him. It’s our anniversary. The least he could have done was make it a point to be on time tonight.”

Alfie doesn’t disagree. In the past two months, he, May, and Cyril have gone to bed without Tommy more often than not. The first few times that it’d happened, Tommy’d at least had the common decency to call from the office and apologize like mad, to tell them both goodnight, that he loved them.

But that soon stopped.

And May might’ve forgiven him for that, but when Tommy’d failed to show up to dinner with her family last month, when they both had to listen to her cunt of a mother ask, delightedly, if May had finally decided on a man—well, May had been fucking livid. And she still carried that around with her, didn’t she? Alfie’d never seen her outright cry, undignified and ugly, before that dinner. But when they’d got to his car, May had let loose in a fit of hurt, slamming her fist into the interior until her knuckles bruised. Alfie had tried to kiss them better, to take her to bed to fuck away the pain. Tommy had been too heavy on their minds though. To want him there, to feel like something was missing, to not know where the fuck he was, well, it soured the mood completely.

“We’ll talk to him, yeah?” Alfie decides.

Not five minutes later Tommy arrives in a rush, cheeks flushed pink from what Alfie assumes was his mad dash to get here. He sets several beautifully wrapped packages onto the table before placing a bouquet of three dozen lilies in May’s arms. Tommy leans down to kiss her soundly, and her smile—wide, sincere, delighted—makes Alfie’s own misgivings ease. By the time Tommy turns to press his lips to Alfie’s, Alfie’s quite forgotten what he’d been angry about in the first place.

And it would’ve stayed that way, wouldn’t it, if Alfie hadn’t caught the faint scent of perfume on Tommy with notes far too subtle to be one of May’s.

***

**VI.**

It’s so perfectly _trite_.

May frowns, her arms crossed tightly beneath her breasts. Of course, she knew it was quite probable their relationship couldn’t sustain itself long term. People might think she’s some insipid young woman from wealth, but she’s hardly _naïve_. Over the course of two years she’d even imagined how it might come to its natural conclusion, yet May hadn’t anticipated something this cliché.

She finds herself hating Tommy just a little more for it.

“There’s someone else then?” she asks to clarify.

Tommy shifts, resting his elbows on his knees, and looks up at her with steady eyes and a stony expression before he nods. It’s always matter-of-fact with Tommy these days, now that he’s started to grow into himself. Not long ago May had begun to appreciate the maturity and all its trappings: the way he held himself, the new wardrobe, the way his smiles were reserved only for her and Alfie. Now she wonders if all that had been for some other woman entirely.

Unable to bring herself to look at Tommy any longer, she turns to Alfie. He sits on the carpets with Cyril, his hands rubbing and stroking the dog’s cheeks and thick neck. It doesn’t take but a few moments to see that that’s the whole of his movements, and a still Alfie tells May all she needs to know.

“How long?” she says carefully, wetting her lips.

“Long enough,” Tommy answers.


	2. Interlude

**VII.**

“He said he never wanted children,” she says, her voice small as if it’s some sort of secret between them.

“Tommy said a lot of things, didn’t he?”

“Do you think—”

“No. I don’t.”

And he has to shut that shit down immediately, right, because nothing—absolutely fucking _nothing_ —good is going to come from May going down that road. He knows it’s where she’s headed, to thin blue lines and sobering conversations and a quick trip to a clinic, easy as that. _Thinking_ about it, that’s the difficult thing. Looking after her had been too. But the decision, it’d been simple, hadn’t it—obvious even, as if there hadn’t been a choice to make in the first place. At least for Tommy and May.

“This,” Alfie adds, a little gentler this time. “S’not that, treacle.”

He wants to reach out to her; he sees those wheels spinning ‘round her head as she stares down at her second gin of the night. She’s looking at it like it might hold the keys to the whole bloody universe, and Alfie can’t blame her. He’d gone on a three-week bender after Tommy, lost entire days to blackness and woke up to Cyril licking sick off his face. He hadn’t touched the stuff since.

Well, until tonight, that is.

Because Alfie, he’s never been particularly adept at telling May _no_. Not until he had to, after those pitiful few weeks where they’d tried to make something happen despite having one fewer person to love. Even then, that’d been one of the hardest fucking things he’s ever had to do, but May knew the words before he’d got half of them out. She’d understood what had to happen.

Still, looking at her now—watching her trace the rim of her glass with her finger—Alfie can hear himself saying: _I can’t, love. I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I love you. I do. Like a mad man, May. You’re everythin’ good in the whole soddin’ world, and you don’t deserve this shit, but I just…_

He probably used up his last bit of fortitude saying all that to her four months ago. So when she showed up at the Bakery tonight, looking half an angel in his dingy office, with a bottle of gin and quivering lip, there was nothing left in him. But maybe, right, just _maybe_ if there _had_ been, he still wouldn’t have been able to turn her away. Not tonight at least. Not when Tommy was out there in Birmingham, celebrating with the newly minted Mrs. Shelby.

“I shouldn’t be sad,” she says, voice trembling despite herself. “I should be angry, Alfie. I _want_ to be angry. I’m entitled to that much.”

Alfie knocks back a mouthful of gin. “Never were much for holdin’ onto our anger when it came to him, the pair of us.”

“And look where we are.”

May rises from the tattered sofa—and it occurs to him that, really, he ought to toss it now as it’d only ever served one purpose—and joins him at his desk. He watches as she tops off her glass with an unsteady hand, a bit of gin splashing over the side and onto her fingers. Bringing them to her lips, she quickly cleans them off and shakes out her hand to dry her spit.

“Well then, Mr. Solomons,” she announces, raising her glass. “To the happy couple.”

Alfie takes the bottle by the neck, his glass already empty, and tips it towards her. “To Shelby Company gin, eh? And to the eradication of incurable sadness.”

They both drink a little too much, a little too quickly. Alfie reminds himself there’s nothing to be found at the bottom of the bottle. He’d learned that lesson already. But having May next to him, sitting on the lip of his desk while he leans against it, well that’s something, innit?

“He always knew how to make a stupidly good gin. Even if it is too sweet.”

Alfie smirks. “Not sweet enough by half.”

May looks over at him then, the promise of a smile on her lips at the reminder of the familiar argument. For a moment, Alfie thinks he’s gone and done it; he’s helped her forget all Tommy’s bullshit even if it doesn’t last more than a few fucking heartbeats. But then the corners of her lips twitch downward, and it’s as if it’s all she can do to hold herself together.

She reaches for him, her glass a broken mess on the floor before he realizes she’s kissing him. And he knows May’s kisses, doesn’t he? He’s spent years carefully discerning the meaning behind each technique—the intensity of her teeth, the depth to the prod of her tongue, the sharpness of the breath that slips between her lips. But what May’s doing now? Well, it’s not about any of that. She’s just hungry and wounded like a half-crazed, half-dying beast of a thing.

Alfie’s knows this, not because he knows _her_ , but because he knows _himself_ ; it’s a recognition of like for like.

It’s why he doesn’t push her away and instead pulls her closer. His hands are rough things on her arms, at her breasts, grasping and pressing—anything to fill even a little of the emptiness he’s felt for months—as she struggles with his belt.

They manage the closest thing they can get to nudity in their drunken fumbling. Alfie just barely gets his trousers pushed low enough before May shoves him back to sit on the sofa and climbs astride him. When she takes him in hand, he grunts and leans forward to take her nipple between his teeth. May winds her fingers through his hair, drawing him in closer with one hand as she holds him steady and rocks against him with the other.

And it feels alright, doesn’t it? Maybe not _good_ , but not _alone_. And that’s, well, that’s _something_ just now. It’s a lot better than anything he’s fucking got. It’s _May_ , and he _loves_ her. That won’t ever change.

The rocking becomes more forceful though, and he’s there, pressing against her cunt. But the thing is, she’s not particularly wet. They both must realize this around the same time because May grows slightly more panicked, more frustrated. Alfie shushes her, touches her exactly how she likes to be touched.

It takes a few moments, but it starts working.

She’s able to press down on him a little further. And it’s not an easy slide into wet heat, but they manage well enough. Alfie even gets a little lost in the feel of her, at least until he’s sliding his hands up her back and expecting to feel another set of hands there, guiding his hands on her body.

The ghost of someone who was there once, but who’s long fucking gone by now feels like a sudden punch to the gut. And Alfie, well, he loses it, doesn’t he? The blood rushes upwards, pounding loud in his ears and making him dizzy.

And he tries—he _fucking tries_ —for her. Willing it to happen doesn’t seem to have the desired effect though, as he softens and slips pitifully out of her.

Alfie shuts his eyes tight, for her sake not for the sake of his pride. He doesn’t want her to see something in them that might tip her off to what happened. She doesn’t need to know, doesn’t need to fucking _feel_ this way—gutted beyond saving. But she must, right, she must absolutely fucking understand because her breath catches, and she’s off him in a second. By the time he can force himself to look at her, she’s turned around, standing in front of him with her knickers wrapped around one ankle.

Her shoulders shake, her hand muffles the sound of a sob that she feels so viscerally that she’s bending over as if to heave. And that’s when he knows, his own eyes growing damp and red: she must’ve felt Tommy too.

***

**VIII.**

Seven months ago, she’d first been introduced to Mr. Robert Carleton by her mother.

As a point, May tries to avoid all recommendations by her mother on personal matters; however, back then, May hadn’t the will to argue with her over Robert’s merits. Besides, her father seemed to take a shine to the young man, and May typically held her father’s opinions in higher regard.

After a few dates, May had confirmed what she’d expected all along. Robert’s dull, likes to talk about stocks and exchange rates, and goes out of his way to act like a gentleman.

Despite all this, May lets him fuck her.

Robert isn’t anything to speak of in bed. Even so, she orgasms sometimes, and on days when she’s been at the stables or volunteering at the animal shelter—those days when she feels particularly numb—she can usually beg off sex or tide him over with a blow job.

He hardly complains.

Despite his obvious shortcomings, May admits that there’s an appeal to dull men a half-decade her senior. It typically rests entirely on their appreciation for a beautiful woman on their arm and the lengths they will go to keep them there.

She has never worried about Robert’s eyes straying. He’s as loyal as a well-trained hound after all. It’s hardly fairytale, but it’s _safe_. She’ll never have to worry about emotionally investing too much in him. She’d said as much to her sister once and had been told she was cruel for behaving that way. May didn’t think so though. She cares in her own way, lets him parade her around, and opens her legs when necessary. He wants for nothing from her.

It’s a good arrangement. Easy and comfortable. Unexciting and trusting. She could do far worse for herself, and it was time.

It’s all perfectly arranged. There’s a bit of snowfall as they walk along the shops of the high street. Robert’s giving her play-by-play commentary of the film they’d just seen, and she listens only close enough to nod and agree when appropriate. When they stroll past the jeweler’s, she stops at the window display and gazes in at the expensive pieces. The sudden halt of her progress tugs him back in her direction.

“What do you think of that one?” she asks.

“Do you like it?” He stares down at the largest ring in the display. “It suits you.”

It doesn’t. Not at all.

“You think?” She asks, all wide smile and flirtation.

“I do.”

“Oh, I’m afraid that’s not your line just yet.” She brushes some snow off the lapel of his coat and then glances up at him through dark lashes. “Though I suspect it could be arranged.”

Robert pulls her towards the door of the shop. “Let’s arrange it then, shall we?”

They’re married a handful of months later. As she walks into the church on her father’s arm, she feels the urge to run, but she stops herself. There’s nothing to fear down that aisle, not from Robert Carleton anyway.

***

**IX.**

“May?”

She startles at the sound of Tommy’s voice—wondering now more than ever if this really is just an awful dream—and turns to him out of habit. There’s panic in those blue eyes. It’s no doubt what causes him to overstep himself, taking her upper arms into his hands and touching them tenderly. When she had imagined what it would be like to see Tommy again, she hadn’t expected wanting him so near or the relief that flooded her.

“What’s happened?”

May shakes her head slowly, unsure of how to form the proper words for it.

“He’s in surgery. Multiple gunshot wounds and significant blood loss,” she explains, parroting what the staff had been able to tell her earlier. “We’re both still listed as emergency contacts apparently.”

Tommy is still for a moment. Then he’s moving his hands again—petting her hair, cupping her jaw, letting his fingers rest warm against her neck. As far as May is concerned, it’s wildly inappropriate. She feels a spark of indignancy in her belly, wants to strike him with her fist after all he’s done and yet still presumes he can do _this_ even now.

But the spark is a bare flicker that doesn’t catch in the dampness of her worry. Somewhere down the corridor Alfie is dying, and that knowledge temporarily revises a lot of history between them. So she allows Tommy to thumb her cheek, even allows him to draw her in close and to press his lips to her forehead. It’s brief, as if he’s worried that her fury might burn him whole, but May’s mind supplies the rest. In a different life, Tommy would wrap his arms around her tightly, whisper a constant stream of assurances int her ear, kiss each of her knuckles in turn over and over again until her heart remembered what it was to beat in proper time.

It’s the dissonance between that life and this one—that she knows what their Tommy would do in a moment like this, and replays what _her_ Tommy is doing now—that has May stepping back and away.

When he’s unable to chain-smoke his stress away, Tommy throws himself into work of some kind. He speaks to the staff, makes calls to whom May can only assume is his private insurance. Meanwhile, she remains fixed, like a lighthouse, steady and awaiting whatever word that might come.

May paces in the waiting area and pours them tea. When she’s preparing their third cups of the night, Tommy receives a call he seems none too pleased to be getting and hurries out into the corridor, presumably beyond her hearing. _His wife_ , her mind supplies.

She, curiously enough, forgets how Tommy takes his tea.

Time passes slowly. Tommy comes and goes. May curls herself up in her chair, resting her head on her balled-up coat.

“I just spoke to BUPA,” he says, coming back into the room and sitting next to her. “Everything’s taken care of.”

May lifts her head and looks at him, her eyes feeling heavy. He looks relieved to have accomplished something. May doesn’t have the heart to tell him that she’d already told the staff that Alfie’s to have the best care private insurance can provide.

“They’re sending over the consultant now,” Tommy continues. “He’s going to be alright. I swear it. I’ll see to it.”

She wants to explain to him that he can’t make that promise, that a person can’t just throw money at bullet holes and expect them to go away. That—between the three of them—money is hardly an issue and hasn’t been for some time now. Technically speaking, Alfie doesn’t even need their financial support to ensure the best care possible. She knows he’s worth more than some of her family’s oldest friends.

But she’s too tired to voice any of that to Tommy. Instead, she meets his eyes and nods, forcing herself to look reassured by his presence. May even reaches out to pat his hand, giving it the briefest squeeze, before settling it back on her lap.

It’s during this careful, silent exchange that she notices the mark on Tommy’s neck. It takes her a moment to register that it’s lipstick, smudged and dried—forgotten—on his skin. And there’s a bit there too, on the collar of his rumpled shirt.

Suddenly, it’s as if she’s seeing him for the first time tonight. He looks the least presentable she’s seen in years, and it all makes perfect sense now _why_.

Leaning across the arms of the waiting room chairs, May presses a kiss to Tommy’s cheekbone. She might linger longer than is strictly necessary, but not so long that it seems untoward. (Not that Tommy cares about such things). When she draws back, she holds his gaze for a long moment.

 _There you are, Tommy_ , she thinks.

“Thank you,” she says instead.

***

**X.**

Sometimes—not often, mind, but on the very rare occasion—Alfie wonders how he finds himself in such strange predicaments. He understands the sequence of events of course. Like tonight, right, he’d been invited over for dinner at Ollie’s, knowing full well, didn’t he, that this was a set up. (Not the business kind, but the romantic). And Alfie, well, he’d agreed because he honestly got tired of Ollie fucking _asking_ —on behalf of Mrs. Ollie—and it was either dinner or firing him. The latter of which being far more agreeable, but Alfie very well couldn’t do that on account of Ollie being one of very, very _few_ people that he trusted to run business in his absence.

So he’d told Ollie alright, hadn’t he? Because he didn’t have a sodding choice in the matter.

And when Ollie’d mentioned an old school friend of Mrs. Ollie’s joining them, if that’d be okay with him, Alfie figured out what this whole thing had been about in the first place. Because he’d already agreed though—and on account of him being a man of his word—Alfie’d shown up at half six as instructed, dressed better than he usually does with a bottle of wine in hand.

That’s how he _got_ here in the very literal sense, but it hardly explains the rest of it.

Mrs. Ollie—and he supposes he ought to ask Ollie what her name is again, but it’s been nearly two years since Ollie’d started with him and at this point it seems rather _rude_ to cop to not remembering, don’t it—well, Mrs. Ollie sits him next to her little school friend and smiles at them. Then she just abandons them together, dragging Ollie along with her into the kitchen to finish off the last of dinner preparations.

The school friend—Julia, he thinks—sends him a shy little look, pretending to busy herself with her phone for just a moment. Something, something, grandmother, something—Alfie doesn’t bother listening to the lie. He’s also not feeling particularly chatty—he’s feeling downright annoyed all of a sudden, of no fault of anyone’s but himself—but he makes an effort because it’s what people do in these situations (or so the people on Cyril’s favorite television show would have him believe).

“Ah, so Julia—”

“Jacqui,” she says, her eyes crinkling in amusement.

She’s not hard to talk to by Alfie’s own estimation. In fact, Jacqui seems to have a lot going for her. She’s a good Jewish girl—Mrs. Ollie wouldn’t introduce her to him otherwise, according to Ollie—but a little rough around the edges in a way that Alfie can appreciate. She’s not much to look at, he supposes. Pretty, but not striking. Just pretty in that plain way that some women are. She’s got nice freckles though (except for that one just about the tip of her nose; that one’s a bit wonky).

But dinner goes well enough. They stand around the kitchen later, everyone drinking wine save for Alfie. They’ve somehow gotten to the topic of pets when Jacqui announces that she quite likes little dogs, but she has an aversion to the big ones. Alfie’s never heard something so utterly fucking preposterous in his entire life—and that _is_ saying something, yeah—but he resists making any sort of comment on account of him being company and all.

Twenty minutes later, Alfie’s making his excuses and walking out the door. Ollie joins him under the premise that he has something to ask about work, but that’s a load of bullshit, ain’t it?

“I’m sorry,” Ollie says as Alfie opens the car door.

“For what?”

“For trying to set you up with someone. Nadine thinks you’re lonely.”

“M’not.”

“Alfie.”

“I ain’t lonely. Got Cyril, don’t I?”

Ollie probably thinks he’s being intentionally thick, but he’s not. Cyril is enough for him. He doesn’t need anyone else because nothing good ever comes from people. He’s learned that lesson by now.

“I’m going to overstep here, and I ask that you forgive me for it,” Ollie says, his gaze a little hesitant. “You’ve not dated anyone for as long as I’ve known you, and that’s a long time not to have someone. Have you thought about, you know, talking to someone?”

Alfie blinks. “I talked to your friend in there.”

“I mean…professionally.”

“Ollie, I’m insulted you think that I’m not fit enough to get it for free.”

Ollie shifts back and forth nervously. “A _therapist_.”

“I don’t need a fuckin’ therapist. There’s nothin’ wrong with me.”

“There’s a picture of you with your exes in your desk drawer at work.” When he realizes what he’s said, Ollie holds up his hands in defense. “I wasn’t snooping. I saw it when I was looking for the folder on Thompson last month. Look, maybe Jacqui isn’t your type. I have a cousin, and he’s usually pretty good about fixing blokes up. If you…” He trails off, pitifully. “If that’s something you’re interested in.”

Alfie stares him down long enough that he can almost see Ollie start cowering. And he’s lucky, Ollie, ain’t he, that he’s indispensable. And that he’s somehow found the pair of bollocks Alfie’d always suspected he had (which, Alfie can grudgingly respect, even if he had no fuckin’ clue just how _giant_ they were). Because if he weren’t, right, then Alfie might cut him clean out.

But because he _is_ , Alfie just gets into the car without another word.

Later, when Alfie gets home, he drops his keys into a dish by the door. Next to it sits a frame with the picture of three young people standing around a pool table, the girl curled against one man while the other man wraps his arms around them both.

Though he doesn’t look at it tonight, there’s a sticky note on the back with two distinct handwritten messages. At the bottom, it’s signed with two kisses, one a beautiful, practiced red and the other a sloppy, but no less lovely, pink.

Sometimes, when he can bring himself to look at it, Alfie wonders how long until those fade too.

***

**XI.**

“The _tarte tatin_ is popular today,” the baker says absently with a smile, handing over his change and the plated pastry. “I had a man order a half dozen for his wife’s birthday party. I’m beginning to think someone did one of those blog posts about it.”

Tommy doesn’t make much of the comment or the baker, just nods his thanks as he takes the plate. He has some time before his next meeting and he’d rather avoid his brothers if at all possible since both are having trouble with their wives. So rather than meet-up with them, Tommy walks around the corner of the counter to the little sitting area and claims an empty table.

“Ah, fuckin’ hell. Are you serious?”

Tommy startles at the familiar voice. His head snaps up from his phone to where Alfie’s seated in the table diagonal to his, apparently halfway through his own piece of _tarte tatin_. At first, Tommy’s not sure exactly how he should feel about this; it’s been ages since he’s seen Alfie, who looks as if he’s spent the last three weeks out in the wilderness. Tommy wets his lips. He’d forgotten how much he used to enjoy when Alfie’d let himself get all hairy.

When he finally gains some semblance of control over his cock, Tommy takes one look at Alfie’s sharply cocked eyebrow and wonders whether Alfie’s going to start throwing fists. These things tend to not go well between them, especially when Alfie’s already fired up about something at the Bakery and all those illegal entanglements. But Tommy breathes a sigh of relief as he watches the tension relax from Alfie’s brow with the shake of his head.

“Fuckin’ unbelievable,” Alfie mutters. “What are you doin’ here?”

“Same as you I suspect.” Tommy nods at Alfie’s plate. “She always said it was the best from here.”

Alfie snorts. “Yeah, don’t remind me.”

“She liked yours too.”

Alfie had perfected the recipe for her in the days leading up the first of her birthdays they’d celebrated together. Tommy remembers it so clearly since _he’d_ been the taste-tester. He didn’t even like pastry that much, but he’d helped because it’d been a surprise for May. By the eve of her birthday though, Tommy’d swore he’d never touch the stuff again.

The morning she’d turned twenty Tommy had spent the better part of an hour in bed with her. He’d put his head between her thighs, tasting himself and Alfie there, before alternating back to the toys. He remembers May’s breathy giggles of _I can’t, it’s too much_ and _Oh, again, Tommy_. He even remembers her _C’mon, Alfie, I need you too, and it’s my birthday_ shouted towards the door. Tommy’d done what he could to entertain her until Alfie’d come in with his prized _tarte tatin_. They’d fed it to each other, ate it off of one another, touched one another with caramel-sugar coated fingers. It wasn’t until suppertime that they’d gotten out of bed—May’s legs a wobbly mess—and only then because they’d promised her a nice dinner.

Even now, Tommy can’t eat the pastry without tasting a little bit of May and Alfie too.

***

 **XII.**

Tommy shuts the laptop’s lid and gently pushes it to the side of his desk, unable to look at any more numbers tonight. It’s getting late anyway, and God knows the work will still be there for him tomorrow. Reaching for the crystal decanter, he pours himself a little whisky to help ease his mind and tense muscles. After a brief pause, Tommy adds a little more to his glass. He’s not fooling anyone, least of all himself.

When the door to his study opens, Tommy silently curses and braces himself. It’d been shut for a _reason_ ; the thought of company just now makes his head pound. But Grace doesn’t seem to care. She walks up to the desk, twitching aside the curtain to stare out at the paddock as the sun sets.

“I finally got Charles down.”

Tommy grunts his acknowledgement. Minutes slip by in silence.

“Tommy,” she says carefully. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

For one single, heart-stopping moment, Tommy thinks she’s going to tell him she’s pregnant again. He can suddenly hardly feel his face, and the urge for a smoke is overwhelming. When he spares her a glance though, there doesn’t seem to be a drop of happiness on her face. Tommy knows Grace well enough to know that she’d feel a little excited about a baby, even if she understood that Tommy wouldn’t. Not a baby then. Tommy shuts his eyes and offers a silent thank-you to Aunt Pol’s God.

“There’s a man. There has been for several months now,” Grace confesses, unable to look at him. “I thought you should know.”

It occurs to Tommy, perhaps a little too late, that Grace is waiting for him to react. To shout, maybe. Or to ask for an explanation. But in order to do that, Tommy would have to care more than he does. There’s a little twinge in his chest, sure, because, despite all the fraught feelings between them, Grace is still his wife; he still loves her, he supposes. Or at least, he had once, in a way far closer to what she deserves, and he senses the echoes of that affection. But more than anything, he just feels the exhaustion already setting into his bones.

“Are you going to say anything?” she asks, indignant.

Tommy throws his hands up and then rubs his brow.

“If you ask me to, I’ll end it.” She stares down at her feet, her voice small. “Just ask me, Tommy.”

“I can’t do that,” he explains, more honest than maybe he’s ever been with her.

Whatever it is she thinks about that, Tommy hopes that she doesn’t think it’s because he feels _betrayed_ , that he’d never take back a partner who’d gone behind his back. It’s not about any of that. More than anything, Tommy doesn’t want to go through the song and dance of reconciliation, of admitting to his faults and trying to correct them. Not with Grace.

“You still say their names, you know. Whenever you do sleep,” Grace says, sniffing hard and sounding a bit like _she’s_ the wronged party here. “I thought you would stop eventually. It’s been three years, but last night…”

“Do you want me to apologize?” Tommy asks, looking up at her. “For something I said in my sleep? I can think of five legitimate reasons off the top of my head why you have every right to be angry with me, but that’s not one of them.”

“I thought it wouldn’t matter.” And it’s as if she’s talking to her own reflection in the window, not to him. “I honestly thought that with Charlie and everything…that it would work. I would be enough. But then I found your box of things when I was preparing the nursery.”

Tommy knew she’d found it; Grace hadn’t exactly been subtle when she'd left it out in the open. She’d probably hoped he’d throw it out, that it’d somehow ended up in his things by mistake when he’d moved. But it hadn’t.

He’d carefully packed up all the little things he’d saved over those two years—cards and photos, sticky notes covered with quick little messages and old ticket stubs. Even though he didn’t have any right to, he still rummaged through the box on certain dates. Sometimes he’d get hard and take his cock in hand, but it was fine, wasn’t it? No harm in it. He’d already caused all the harm he could to the people he’d buried in that shoe-box coffin.

So yes, he still had it. If Grace had expected him to bin it, she’d been misguided from the start. And if she’s saying all this to him now, expecting her revelation to be just that, then she hardly knows him at all.

“Did you really let her f—.” She stops abruptly, as if she hadn’t meant to give voice to the words in the first place. “No, I don’t want to know.”

“Grace.”

“The most pathetic thing is that I thought I had a chance,” she whispers. “I was only fooling myself though, wasn’t I? I could hardly compete with one of them, let alone two.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for bearing with me as I serve up the angsty thing I've ever written in my entire life, but the good news is that it only goes up from here. 
> 
> A few notes: 
> 
> 1\. I'm indebted to MintJam for helping me figure out the whole NHS and privatized insurance business in the UK. For the Americans in the room like myself, BUPA is one of the biggest/best private insurance companies in the UK that can get a person quicker access to care sometimes as well as perks like private rooms, etc. A consultant is a top-tier doctor that can be hired on to take over care from one appointed by NHS. (Minty also tells me that you always refer to these people as mister/miss, never doctor, or they will consider it insulting. #themoreyouknow). 
> 
> 2\. May seemed to sincerely love her husband in the show, so I felt like I did him dirty here. I'm sure he was perfectly fine in bed. However, once you go Tommy and Alfie, you don't go back. Understandably, he felt like a downgrade. 
> 
> 3\. Maybe the Grace revelation felt odd to some folks, but I essentially wanted to keep the canon elements here and just reverse them. So it's Tommy that she cheats on with the American (whose name is apparently Clive???), rather than the other way around.

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, yes. This chapter doesn't end on a happy note! However, I promise a happy ending for these three. The second chapter, "interlude," will show the three of them dealing with the fallout of part six over the course of a couple years. The final chapter, "after," will take us to better (but slightly more mature and necessarily different) places. 
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts on things so far, especially since this is a rather small ship! I'm also curious if there's any outtakes you'd like to see from chapter one.


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